On this photo illustration, an insulin pen manufactured by the Novo Nordisk company is displayed on March 14, 2023 in Miami, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The highest executives of the three drug corporations that control 90% of the worldwide insulin market will testify May 10 before the Senate Health Committee on lowering prices of the diabetes drugs, panel chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders said Friday.
Those corporations — Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi — had announced in March that they are going to slash prices of their most generally used insulin products by 70% or more.
Sanders on Friday called that move a very important step forward that was the results of “public outrage and powerful grassroots efforts.”
However the Vermont independent added that Congress must be sure that insulin, whose price has increased by greater than 1,000% since 1996, is reasonably priced for everybody.
“We must make sure, nevertheless, that those price reductions go into effect in a way that leads to every American getting the insulin they need at an inexpensive price,” Sanders said in a press release announcing the scheduled testimony of Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks, Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson, and Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen.
The businesses’ versions of insulin cost a minimum of $275 before the announced price slashes, Sanders noted.
Eli Lilly declined to comment when asked in regards to the scheduled hearing. A Sanofi spokesperson said the corporate supports efforts to lower costs and believes other parts of the healthcare system have to do more to assist patients. Novo Nordisk said its CEO looks forward to “a productive and collaborative discussion about this essential issue.”
Top executives from the three major pharmacy profit managers CVS Health, Express Scripts and Optum Rx also testify, based on Sanders’ office.Those executives are David Joyner, president of CVS Health pharmacy services; Adam Kautzner, president of Express Scripts; and Heather Cianfrocco, CEO of Optum Rx
Pharmacy profit managers are the center men who negotiate drug prices with manufacturers on behalf of medical insurance plans. PBMs have come under criticism for inflating drug prices and never passing on all of the discounts they negotiate to consumers.
The Health and Human Services Department estimates that 17% of patients using insulin in 2021 needed to ration the drug attributable to high costs.
About 19% of insulin users with private insurance rationed the drug, and 29% of the uninsured who use insulin did so, based on HHS.
The choice by the drugmakers to slash insulin prices got here a month after President Joe Biden called in his State of the Union address for Congress to cap insulin prices at $35 per 30 days.
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act introduced that cap for people on Medicare, the government-run health coverage program for primarily senior residents, however the law didn’t include individuals with private insurance.
Greater than 2 million patients with diabetes who take insulin are privately insured, based on HHS.
And about 150,000 patients who take insulin don’t have insurance, the department says.
On Thursday, two senators, Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced bipartisan laws that will require private medical insurance to cap prices at $35 per 30 days for a minimum of certainly one of each insulin type and dosage form. The bill includes other measures to scale back prices.
Insulin types include rapid, short, intermediate and long-acting, in addition to pre-mixed. Dosage forms include vials, pens and inhalers.
